The New Ski Movie About Vermont’s Backcountry
Love skiing Vermont’s backcountry glades and trails? Be sure to check out Leave Nice Tracks: The State of Vermont’s Backcountry when it debuts this Fall.
For four years, filmmakers Dan Cirenza and Marius Becker (both former cameramen for ESPN) and Kyle Crichton followed Vermonters Angus
McCusker, Zac Freeman and a posse of volunteers from the Rochester/Randolph Sports Trails Alliance as they created ski glades in the Green Mountain National Forest—the first sanctioned glading done on National Forest land.
“Kyle and I grew up together and we started out just wanting to make some kind of backcountry film. Then we heard about what the RASTA guys were doing and joined them on one of their first glading trips in the fall of 2014,” Cirenza recalls.
Cirenza, a former Freeride World Tour competitor, brought in his former ESPN colleague cinematographer Marius Becker. The film follows McCusker and Freeman as they teach their kids to ski on a homemade backyard rope tow, map the future glades and head into the woods with chainsaws to lead glading expeditions.
“What amazed me the most was how the whole community came together to support their efforts and to launch the film and we wanted to debut it in Rochester, where it all started,” says Cirenza.
In September, after having invested their own money and time in the film, the trio put it up on Kickstarter. Within a matter of days they had raised the remaining $12,000 they needed to finish it.
This Nov. 7, their documentary Leave Nice Tracks: The State of Vermont’s Backcountry debuts at the Backcountry Forum in Rochester, Vt. Also slated for the Backcountry Forum is an update about RASTA’s plans for the winter and other glading and trailwork projects being undertaken by the Catamount Trail Association’s six chapters across the state.
There will be beer, a potluck and a lot of backcountry skiing plans made. For more, see leavenicetracks.com
Featured Photo Caption: Angus McCusker, hard at work (right) . Photo courtesy Marius Becker